They had traveled for fully twenty minutes in silence; to Teddy it had seemed as many hours. The patches of waste-land with hoardings, advertising chewing-gums and New York plays, were growing less frequent. A sea-look was softening the blueness of the sky. The greenness by the roadside remained unmarred for longer and longer stretches. They skirted a little bay, where power-boats lay tethered to buoys and a white-winged yacht was spreading sail. They panted through a town of scattered wooden houses, cool with lawns and shadowy with trees. Then they came to a sandy turf-land, across which a horseman distantly galloped, leaping ditches and hurdles.
He paid scant attention to his changing surroundings. He kept gazing at the girl at his side. He feared to raise his eyes from her for a second, lest she should drift away like thistledown.
Was she asleep or pretending? Why should she be asleep, when they had so much to say and she had been up for barely three hours? Her ungloved hand screened her eyes. He suspected that she was spying on him through her fingers. Did it amuse her to torment him with silence? She had done that with variations from the moment of their meeting at Glastonbury. He couldn’t understand her motive in trying to make him wretched. His impulse, if he liked people, was to make them glad. He became ingenious in unearthing reasons for her conduct. Perhaps she was getting ready to confess the thing for which she had to ask his forgiveness. Perhaps she was offended by his request that she should remove her glove. But she hadn’t seemed offended at the time of asking. And, if she were, how trivial! She need only have refused him. She’d given him far graver causes for offense.
He had reached this point in his despair, when suddenly she uncovered her face and sat up vivaciously.
“Smell the sea! Cheer up. We’re nearly there.”
Darting out her hand, she patted his knee, laughing gayly at her familiarity.
“You are restful You don’t expect me to chatter all the time. People need to be very good friends to be able to sit silent. I know men who’d be quite snappy if I—— But you’re different.”
She spoke caressingly, giving him credit for a delicacy which he did not merit. He felt cheap in the accepting of it He wasn’t at all convinced of her sincerity. He had the uncomfortable sense that she was aware that he wasn’t convinced of it.
“Poor you! You do look squashed. One would think you weren’t enjoying yourself. Was it really only business that brought you to America?”
He smiled crookedly, making a lame effort to clamber back to her level of high spirits. “Didn’t you arrange that we were going only to be sensible?”
She clasped her hands and gazed at him wistfully. “But we needn’t be sensible quite always; it wouldn’t be fun. Besides, if it was just business that brought you over, I ought to know, because——”
“Because,” he laughed, “if it was just business, then it wasn’t you that brought me. And, if it wasn’t you, I’ll be going back directly. If it was just business, the only way you could make me stop longer would be by being more lavish with your sweetness. You’ve not changed. Desire; you’re still the dear, imperious Princess, always kindest at the moment of parting.‘’
“Now you’re drizzling.”
“I’m not. But you push me over precipices for the sheer joy of making me thank you when you pull me back to safety. I’m most happy to thank you, little Desire; but I’d be ever so much obliged if you wouldn’t try such risky experiments. You see, you know you’re going to rescue me, but I’m never certain.”
She drooped towards him fluttering with merriment “Oh, youl What a lot you know!”
With a quick transition of mood, she sat erect and became severely solemn. “I shan’t be nice all day unless you tell me. But if you do tell me——” The blank was wisely left for his imagination to fill in with eloquent promises. Then, putting all her charm into the question, “Why did you come?”
He looked away, ashamed that she should see his unshared emotion. “You know already.”
“But I’d rather hear it from your lips. It isn’t half as exciting to have to take things for granted.”
“If you must have it, I came because of you.”
“And not one scrap because of business?”
“Not one scrap because of business. Business was my excuse to my people. I had to tell them something.”
He was staring at her now. His soul stood beckoning in the windows of his eyes, watching for an answering signal.
It was her turn to glance away. She had wakened something which both thrilled and frightened her. She took refuge in disappointment.
“Then you didn’t mention me to them. My father doesn’t know. I wonder why you didn’t mention me. Was it because they—all those old-fashioned people—wouldn’t think me good enough?—No. No. Don’t touch me. Perhaps, after all, it’s better to be sensible. Let’s talk of something else.”
“We’ve got to finish this now that you’ve started it.” His face was stern and he spoke determinedly. “I’d have passed over everything, for your sake, Princess-gone on pretending to take things for granted. But-d’you think you’re fair to me? You said, ‘Come to America if you really care.’ I thought that meant that you’d begun to care.-I hope it does.”
She crossed her feet and resigned herself to the danger she had courted. “You’re spoiling a most glorious day; but I suppose it’s best to get things off one’s chest.” Then, in a composed, cool little voice, “Well?”
He surprised himself by a touch of anger. It came and was gone like a flicker of lightning.
“I’ve obeyed you,” he said slowly; “I’ve come. I’ve done everything decent that I could think of to keep you reminded of me. Since we said ’Good-by,’ I’ve known nothing but purgatory. Even happy things haven’t been happy, because you weren’t there to share. That’s the way I feel about you, Desire: whatever I am or can be must be for you. But you—— From the moment you sailed out of Liverpool, you dropped me. You didn’t answer my letters. You went out of New York the day I landed, leaving no message. When we met last night for five minutes, you were with another man. This morning for about half-an-hour you did seem glad, but since then——”
He bit his lips and watched her. Outwardly she seemed utterly unmoved. “Shall I go on?”
“Just as you like.”
His words came with a rush. “This means too much to me; it’s all or nothing. If it means nothing to you, say so. I’m not playing. I can go away now—there’s time; soon you’ll have become too much a part of me.—When you’ve forced me up to the point of being frank, you say, ’Let’s talk of something else.’ Can’t you understand that you’re becoming my religion—that I do everything thinking, ’This’ll make her happy,’ and dream about you day and night?”
She sat beside him motionless. He had expected her either to surrender or to show resentment. She made no attempt to alter her position; their shoulders were still touching.
At last, when he had come to the breaking-point, she lifted her grave gray eyes. “You’re foolish,” she said quietly. “Of course I’m glad of you. But you’ll spoil everything by being in such a hurry. You don’t know what kind of a girl I am. We’ve not been together twenty-four hours all told, and yet that’s been long enough to teach me that we’re totally unlike. I’m temperamental—-one of those girls who alter with the fashions. You’re one of the people who never change. You’re the same nice boy I used to play with, and fancy that—oh, that on some far-off day I might marry. You’re nearly famous, so mother says. I want to be famous, too; but I’m younger than you—I’ve not had time. But I know much more about the world. Don’t be hurt when I say it: your ideas about love and your generosity, and everything you do, make me feel that you’re such a child. I like you for it,” she added quickly.
Then, speaking in a puzzled way: “You make things difficult. I shouldn’t be doing right by encouraging you, and——” She faltered over her words. The innocent kindness shone in her eyes. “And I can’t bear to send you away. I don’t know what to do. I’d have encouraged you if I’d written to thank you for those flowers, shouldn’t I? But they made me just as happy as—— I was a regular baby over them. Every morning they lay there on my plate and I wore them the whole day. Fluffy used to chaff me. You don’t like Fluffy.” She winked at him provokingly. “Oh, no, you don’t! You think actresses improper persons. You needn’t deny it.—And I do so want to be an actress, so as to prove to my father and Mrs. Sheerug, and all the lot of them, that I’m worth knowing. Can’t you understand? After I’m great, I might be content to chuck the stage and become only a simple good little wife.”
“Wouldn’t it be as fine,” he whispered, “to share some one else’s success?”
She gazed at him wisely. “Philanthropic egotist! You know it wouldn’t. Own up—don’t you know it wouldn’t?”
“For a man it wouldn’t,” he conceded ruefully.
She smiled vaguely. “Then why for a woman? Only love could make it different. You believe in love at first sight. I don’t At least, I’m not sure about it.”
“But you can’t call ours love at first sight.”
“Ours!” She raised her brows. “Yours was. You had your magic cloak ready to pop over me the moment you thought you’d found me. I’m only a lay figure.”
“You’re not,” he protested hotly. “If you’d read my book, you’d know that. Your face is on every page.”
“A lay figure,” she repeated imperturbably.
She did not gratify his curiosity as to whether she had read Life Till Twenty-one. He waited. At last, driven to desperation, he asked, “What am I to do?”
“Do?”
“Yes. I’ve nothing to keep me in America; I had nothing to bring me over except you. If I stay here and don’t give my people an explanation, they’ll begin to wonder. It won’t be playing the game. So if you don’t care——”
She laughed so gayly that she made all his mountain difficulties seem molehills. “What an old serious! You can’t set times and seasons for love. Sooner or later, if you keep on jogging, everything turns out all right. You’ve got to believe that. It does.”
Since she was his prophetess, he let her optimism go undisputed. He almost shared it. But it didn’t provide him with a certain foundation for his future.
“If you’ll stop drizzling,&rdq............